


Hidden Wounds

by Ghostinthehouse



Series: Ficlet Omens [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Gen, Mention of Canon Compliant Deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 18:43:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19729549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostinthehouse/pseuds/Ghostinthehouse
Summary: Crowley has never been one to let a child cry alone.





	Hidden Wounds

He found the boy curled tight in a hollow in the grass by the sound of his broken breaths, just shy of tears, and dropped down beside him. "You all right?" It was a stupid question, and he knew it the moment the words were out of his mouth. No one who'd been through what this boy had just been through was ever going to be "all right".

He saw the boy's face crumple, said, "Ugh, come here," and gathered him into his arms, where the boy finally broke down and wept for the loss of everything he'd ever known.

"Why?" the boy sobbed.

"Some ineffable plan or other."

"No. Why come after me? After... after everything."

"I can go away again, if you want?"

"No!" The boy clung tighter to his robe and cried harder.

He could have said, "Your mother asked me to," but it had been the sheer pain in Eve's voice when she cried out, "Crawly, you damned serpent! You started all this! _You_ look after him!"

He could have said, "My friend would have wanted me to," but he didn't think the boy knew Aziraphale for anything except the sword his parents still had. Certainly not the anxious worry and care in the angel's voice as he listed the reasons for his gift, including this boy's upcoming birth.

He could have said, "I know how it feels," because thrown out of the only place he knows and forbidden to ever return, stripped of everything that filled his heart, and marked indelibly as evil for all to see? Only too familiar.

He could have said, "Somebody had to," because while he's a demon and therefore unforgiveable by nature (well, nurture, at least), the boy is human and shouldn't be. Hopefully. Eventually. Or at least shouldn't have to cry alone, forever, without even a friend to turn to for comfort. If a demon can't keep a murderer company, who can? 

He chose to say nothing.

God was good at banishment - from heaven, from the Garden, from every human alive - like someone hiding a wound from view. But before Crawly fell, he'd been made as a healer, and he knew that hidden wounds only fester, and then the cleansing is worse than it would ever have been if they were just treated right in the first place.

He didn't know if these new wounds could ever be healed, or how fierce the eventual cleansing would be (and wouldn't until the Flood washed even the children away) but he had to try.

For now though, he could only hold Cain, and let the lost boy, the first murderer, (he'd get a commendation for "corrupting" him, no doubt. Ugh.) cry himself to sleep on his shoulder on the first day of the rest of his life.


End file.
